bubbles
by THE AMBASSADOR OF HUGS
Summary: They're dead, the Doctor realizes.


The Doctor steps out into a bedroom, gloriously normal, except that it isn't. The Ponds peek out behind him, and then Amy glides into the room and turns in a full circle.

"Bedrooms, now? Bit boring, hmm?" she pops a CD case out of the rack near the desk and flips it over. "Let me guess, is it haunted computer games, maybe?" she holds up _Problem __Sleuth_ between manicured fingers and sets it back down again on the mess of paper and disk sleeves littering the desk.

"No. Maybe," the Doctor admits, picking at the hospital corners of the ghost-themed bedsheet, then plopping down. "Alright, test. Rory, you tell me what's wrong with this room."

"Uh, there's a cake. On the dresser, is it the cake on the dresser?" Rory stares at the elaborate piece of confectionery.

"No, and not the cake on the toy chest, either," he whips the sonic out of his coat pocket, "although they might be handy should we get a bit peckish. Now! _What_ is wrong with this room? And I mean _really_ wrong. This is a kid's room, and I was shooting for 52nd century China, so _why?_"

"No kid," Amy states, looking out the window. "No anyone- are we in America?"

"Yes? Maybe, I can't tell, all kid's bedrooms look the _same_ to me," the Doctor says, more impatient now, the circles becoming tighter as he clicks the sonic at random intervals, listening. And then he freezes. "Everybody close your eyes."

"Why?" ask Amy and Rory at nearly the same time, Amy indignant and Rory nervous.

"No questions, just do it."

They do, and the Doctor makes one more circle, coming to a halt, eyes closed and facing the far left corner of the room. He opens his eyes. "Oh, now. That is wonderful."

"What- oh," Amy turns and focuses, really focuses. "That wasn't there before, was it."

"No, it wasn't," the Doctor says triumphantly, stepping into the extra twenty-five square feet stapled to the edge of the room, walls folded back flawlessly as if it had been there the entire time. He presses his face against one of the walls, listening. "Now that is really fantastic."

"The toy chest's gone," Rory blinks and circles the spot in between the two segmented rooms. "Where's it gone?"

"I don't know," the Doctor is crouched down, pointing the sonic at the spot Rory is treading, "move your feet," he says petulantly, the sonic buzzing.

"This room shouldn't exist- this room _doesn__'__t_ exist, at least not here."

"But I can see outside, there's trees and cars and a stupid pogo thing-"

"Yes, yes, you think you can see," the Doctor cuts Amy off, "but close your eyes. Close them, and really _think,_ because if that's sunny, temperate old Suburbia out there-"

He came up to the window along Amy, and raised his eyebrows-

"Why's it gone all dark?"

Amy leapt away from the window, shattered and pitch black outside. "That _wasn__'__t __like__ that._ It wasn't, it was all bright, and sunny, and _normal,_" she shouted, "and _what__'__s __that?_"

The Doctor turned slowly. In the stapled unsupported _not-supposed-to-be-there_ space there was a machine, like a lathe, positioned against the back wall.

He touches the engraved logo, a green spirograph, something that feels terribly wrong.

"This is it."

"What?" Rory looks up from the shred of movie poster in his hands, splattered with red and green paint. The Doctor lines the edges of the circle, following it with tentative fingers.

"This is wrong, this is very, very wrong."

He pulls Amy and Rory to the middle of the room, a protective hand on both their shoulders.

"This room is existing out of time. The room- or something else- is trying very hard to make us believe everything's all right. That's why it's maintained the details- but it's slipping, now; the perception filter's low level, just enough effort to make you look it over and pass it by- but _why?_"

"_John_?" Rory jumps and the three press against the wall as the door nudges further open, already ajar, though it hadn't been when they'd appeared.

Grey fingers curl around the door, and a dark-haired alien girl peeks into the room. It takes the Doctor a moment to realize her eyes are white and empty, her face split by black lips into a fanged grin just as white.

"_Oh, __hey, __Vriska-__"_ their heads whip around to the boy sitting serenely on the floor, and suddenly the room is in perfect order and the boy puts down an enormous brick of a joke book. It's snowing outside.

"_Let__'__s __make__ that __snow __thing,__ the__ one__ with __the__ carrots,_" the girl says, tongue between her teeth and glasses dancing with the light through the window. It takes a moment to notice the way her voice is slightly out of sync, like audio a beat out of time with a movie. Enough to unsettle the Doctor, who steps away from the wall, looking between the children.

"They don't see us," Amy breathes.

"No," the Doctor agrees, brow furrowing.

"_Okay, __yeah,__ but __I__ don__'__t __think__ we__ actually __own __carrots. __I__ think __fruits __and __vegetables __are __outlawed __from__ the __household, __and __there__'__s __only __cake.__ For __eternity,__" _the boy doesn't so much stand as he does float to his feet, blue eyes smiling behind rectangular glasses. There's a shout of mirth from through the window, a wet glob of snow smacking soundly into the suddenly-there-again glass by Rory's face.

"_That__'__s __not __glubbing __fair,_" a girl yells, and two boys laugh and the girl inside cackles and shoves open the window. Her hands go through the Ponds, who jerk out of the way, the touch colder and more unsettling than the sudden winter wind.

"_I,__ Marquise __Spinneret __Mindfang, __shall __conquer __you __all __in __this __primitive __human__ game __of __frozen __waterlobbing!__"_

"_Be- __um, __before __you __get __around __to __the __conquering, __I__'__m, __uh, __stuck __in __the __rubber, __uh, __circular __vehicle __apparatus, __my __horns-__"_

The Doctor begins to notice how the sound isn't quite right, the room isn't quite right, the shadows cast in the wrong places and nothing underneath the laughter and wind but static, and how the sky is still black and _wrong_-

"_Don't worry, lowblood, I will assist in your removal-"_

"_The lioness pounces bravely from the branches to save the princess from the seadweller's barrage-"_

A boy outside reaches across a hill of snow for a girl wearing the same goggles as him, only his are cracked and hiding something else, something empty underneath them, while hers is only whiteness-

"_Fef, that's cheating-"_

"They're dead," the Doctor realizes aloud, eyes fixed on the girl yelling out the window at her unfortunate friend.

"What? But-"

"This isn't a _physical_ realm. We're stuck in time, but that's because it's- remember that hospital? Where someone could live out their entire lives in a day, and you could watch them do it?"

Amy looks at the ceiling and Rory swallows painfully.

"It's like that, It's like that but these people are dead. Well-" he looks at the boy in blue, frozen into that warm, gormless smile, "not all of them. A memory, maybe, or visiting. But not dead." He kneels in front of the boy, sonic pointed into each eye.

"_Alright, __Marquise, __we__ can __dominate,_" and suddenly he's across the room, pulled into a snazzy coat and leading the alien girl excitedly out of the door and the din from outside, the sound of snow and wind and laughter and the thrumming white noise come to a great, ear-shattering crescendo, and then the door clicks shut.

There is absolute silence, because there's nobody there that needs for it to be real, and then there's blackness, just Amy, Rory, the Doctor and the TARDIS. The Doctor reaches out, and space bends around his fingers.

"A bubble. A bubble, and we've split off."

"It wasn't real," Amy breathes, fingers tight around the doorframe of the TARDIS.

"They were kids? Just... kids?"

"Just kids. Dreaming."

There's a still kind of silence, more than just the void of the bubble, as Amy turns and pulls open the doors and disappears into the good, familiar hum of the ship. Rory follows, and the Doctor pauses on the threshold, looking out into the void.


End file.
